MP Diaries : The Rock Paintings (Blast from the Past)

The story so far:

Delhi - Kanha
Kanha and around
Kanha to Bhopal
Bhopal to Bhojpur and Ujjain

The next morning we did wake up as required... as early as 0400 hrs and were out of the hotel and in the temple on time... We had a small argument with the police there over the temple opening early and no cloakroom available to keep our stuff there...

We entered the temple... waited in a not that small queue, and finally got a seat near the Shivling... The Arti was already on and we watched the entire proceedings on the TVs fitted outside the Garbhagreh... The most typical of the morning arti at Mahakaal Temple is the BhasmArti where ashes from a still burning pyre are brought to be used in the arti...

What caught my attention was a Naga Baba who was standing still throughout the Aarti but suddenly he started moving as if he has the most energy in this world... For the next 20 odd minutes throughout the time when Bhasm Arti was going on, he was the person to look at... AWESOME it was....

We rushed back, picked our bags and rushed to the Railway Station to catch the 0715 Intercity Express back to Bhopal... We were just in time to take the tickets and this time we took the reserved compartment, to see if we could make up for the lack of sleep and manage some during out 4 hour journey back to Bhopal...

The Ganeshji :)

The next 4 hours did not see a lot of activity except me not letting Aro sleep when I did not get to sleep well...

The train reached Bhopal on time and we quickly found a hotel near the station only and planned for the rest of the day... We wanted to go to BhimBethka ( to see the rock paintings) and then again to Bhojpur ( We could not get enough of the place the last afternoon)...

A Bison attacking men...

So we changed, hired a cab and set off to Bhimbethka... The place was without a doubt magical with all those colorful paintings all around... You can read more about the paintings here. and the pictures you can check out below...

The Flying Man...

Ready to go hunting...

Community Dancing and Festivity...

Hunting in Progress...

Mammoths...

The Rock Shelter popularly known as the Zoo Rock...

Community on Rocks... There is a King as well whose horse has flowers all around...

Another one of the paintings...

After a while we moved towards Bhojpur again and spent the rest of the day there...

The Gold that INDIA produces... Wheat...

Harvesting Wheat...

The Shivling at Bhojpur...

Sunset from Bhojpur...

The place is in our hearts... Visible in the shades right now...

The platform at the Bhojpur Temple...

By evening we were back in Bhopal and in the new market area... Did some shopping in Mrignayani and had the best pan in the world at Banarasi Pan Bhandar... I was happy to see that the taste had not changed much in the last few years...

The day that started a li'il too early finally came to an end around 2200 hrs with no plans for our final day in MP... there was a certain amount of satisfaction though in whatever we had in the last 5 days !!! had lived INDIA the way we liked...

and tomorrow was yet another day :)

MP Diaries : Bhopal to Ujjain

We had slept pretty late last night, and were not sure what was in store for us today... so the mood was lazy, and the conversations slow..

but at the back of our minds we knew there was much to see, and much to go to... so we kinda picked up some pace and go ready around 1130 hrs and had our breakfast at a Haldiram types restaurant just outside our hotel !!!

Oh, yes ! I am back to finishing off my MP travelogue :)

Here are the first few parts if you have missed them :

Delhi - Kanha
Kanha and around
Kanha to Bhopal

We wanted to go to Bhojpur, had heard nice things about it, a 1000 year old incomplete temple, world's tallest Shivling etc etc and we also wanted to go to Ujjain... ok I wanted to go to Ujjain (I feel some connection with Shiva and hence all the Jyotirlings come into the list of places I feel good about; and the Shivling @ Ujjain happens to be called MahaKaal too)

Talked to a few people and found out that there was an intercity express to Ujjain from Bhopal at 1700 hrs and will take 4 hours to reach Ujjain...

Now this made perfect sense, we could take an auto, go to Bhojpur come back, pack our bags and leave for Ujjain... come back to Bhopal tomorrow and take it from there... super..

So after talking to a few Autowallahs, and doing some bit of not to successfull bargaining we agreed to give the guy 270 bucks to take us to Bhojpur ( around 25 kms away from Bhopal) and bring us back...

The drive was fine, the sun not too strong and once we were out of the city between the farms it actually became must pleasent !!! I realised how much Wheat MP must be producing looking at the wast span of the golden fields all around !!! lovely view it was... Did stop at a few places to enjoy the calm and finally reached Bhojpur...

The Sprinklers for Wheat Fields...

The temple is massive, and was my second stop next to the river Betwa (The first being Orccha), and we were surprised at the size of the Shivling too... no wonder !

A Kiddo who was there with his parents for a Pooja...

Renovation work in progress at the Bhojpur Temple...

We spent a good couple of hours at the temple before we decided to move back to Bhopal and catch the train !!!

Aro at Bhojpur

A Local Musician at Bhojpur...

The return journey was equally nice and we did manage to reach the station on time too, rather before time... I remember buying the tickets and then coming out of the station to eat something... how could we not...

So this time... we had rasmalai, some other local mithai, some tea, and some cold drinks, not in this order though :)

Soon enough the train journey started again, this time a different flavor... General Coach, Wooden Benches, not too crowded though :)

A Passenger in the Intercity Express from Bhopal to Ujjain

did take us close to about 4 hours, but enjoyed every minute of it... talked to people, took pictures, got a small lesson on gun management from a Railway Policeman too :)

Catching Hope :)

Sunset from the Train...

We reached Ujjain around 2100 hrs and checked into a hotel near the station only... Learnt that the Bhasm Aarti starts at 0500 hrs in the morning and we should be in the temple by 0400 hrs to get a decent view !!!

Arobindo in the train...

The General Compartment we were in...

Now this meant a quick dinner and sleeping without much talking !!! And that happened too !!!

More to follow...

B/W Newspaper Colorful News :)

Some Data now..

Bhopal - Bhojpur : 25 kms
Auto fare : about 250-350 bucks depending on how you bargain...
What to do in Bhojpur : Nothing :) just sit back and relax
Train for Ujjain from Bhopal : Intercity Express @ 1700 hrs everyday
Fare : 50 rs. for the General Class, You can take that ticket and enter the reserved compartment too where the ticket can be upgraded for about Rs. 17 for that coach... the difference is better seats only !!!

The Day of Plans and Decisions

The plan was to wake up early and leave for Pachmadi... But then sleep being one of the best things to rest with, we were just not ready to get up... finally managed to leave the beds around 1100 hrs...

Oh.. but I think before I start the story, I need to remind you of what we were doing so far...

Read HERE, for our trip from Delhi to Kanha...

and HERE for Kanha to Piparia...


Ok, now back to the morning in Piparia...

A Hair Dresser/Salon Board in Piparia :)

The foot was better now, thankfully yesterday night's sprain was not there... there was not much thinking to do today... it was just getting up and moving to Pachmadi, which was to be our bunker for the next two days with us intending to walk around the place and explore as much as we can...

The station was not too far, and the buses/jeeps for Pachmadi were on the other side of the station... so we walked up the over-bridge and crossed to see many jeeps, one of which was to take us to our destination...

One of the platforms at the Piparia Station

We hired one, and had to now wait for more passengers to join the jeep before we could move...

Meanwhile, the taxi guy suggested having some food at a nearby restaurant called Naivedya... We ordered a parantha and chole poori there, and manh were they tasty or what !!!

I think we then ate atleast 7 plates of chole poori... paid the bill to Mr Hansmukh Jaiswal who runs and co-owns the place...

7 Up Bottles in Naivedya

The taxi was not still full.. rather we were the only two passengers yet... what followed was a wait of about 1.5 hours before we finally moved...

The Wall of a Deserted Building with an Adult Movie poster near the Taxi Stand in Piparia

People come people went... people stayed people waited and came and went in those 90 minutes... basically I don't remember getting bored at all...

Like I said, People were coming and going...

And Some enjoying their smoke...

The Tempo Gama finally moved... and about 54 kms and and another 90 minutes later we were in Pachmadi... It was interesting to see Deepak, the helper of the taxi, to use the tyre at the back of the car as his seat for these 54 kms... Infact thats where the helpers sit... there is no space for them in the taxi after a total of 14+1 passengers sit in that 8 seater vehicle...

The Tempo Gama...

Someone at our pitstop between Piparia and Pachmadi

Its more or less a jungle Area between these two places... Can imagine how beautiful this would look in rains...

The Developing Country... I see it... Do you?

Spend about an hour roaming around with the taxi wallah to find a decent hotel for ourselves, but did not really find anything interesting... so we moved up hill to see if there was something away from the town... though the taxi guy strongly opposed the idea, we still wanted to check a few places out, which we did and after a while, we asked him to drop us and leave...

A flower in one of the hotels in Pachmadi

I guess me and Aro were not comfortable with the way he was trying to guide our thought process of taking up a room etc... so there we were.. about 3 kms from the main town, and looking for a place for ourselves... checked two hotels and on our way to the third, we stopped to take some rest... i was sitting on the road and i suddenly turned towards Aro and said, lets go back... I don't like this place !!!! And Aro almost freaked out !!! he told me he would have said it in a minute, if I had not...

And the only other photo from Pachmadi :)

so a quick decision later we were laughing and moving back to the taxi stand making the next best plan... where to go now... Indore, Ujjain or Bhopal? or maybe back to Jabalpur and stay put there...

Walked a while, took a lift from a gypsy fellow and reached the Taxi Stand... Some people recognised us from the taxi stand in Piparia, and wondered why the hell were we going back... did not have a convincing answer for them anyway :) However we got talking to a few local there and made a new plan !!! the first leg of which was to reach Piparia and then take a bus to Bhopal !!!

The drive back to Piparia was not the best of all, as there were six people in the last two seats facing each other in that Mahindra, and I almost suffocated myself to death... thanks to two people who stopped the car to puke, I was able to stand outside for a couple of minutes each !!! We finally managed Piparia and rushed to the bus stand only to realize that the last bus to Bhopal leaves at 1730 hrs, and it was already 1800 hrs...the alternative was to take a bus to Hoshangabad and then to Bhopal from there... I was not feeling too well because of the taxi ride back from Pachmadi, and Aro was kind enough to get me some limca while I got the bags loaded and found a decent seat for us !!!

One of temples somewhere on our way to Hoshangabad...

About 2.5 hours and loads of amazing small conversations later we were in Hoshangabad... Could have taken a bus to Bhopal right away, but decided to take a break, eat something and then go from there... There were regular buses to Bhopal till midnight anyway !!!

So we walked out of the bus stand, roamed around a bit and saw one of the most interesting boards in a long long time !!! Ghamandi Lassi !!! this was interesting and called for a drink or two !!! So we were there after a quick steps and feasted on the lovely Lassi!!! nothing special about the brand name here, except that this was a name that was given to the Lassi some 30 odd years ago to attract customers...

Ghamandi Lassi...

Times had changed, and the brothers who set up the juice and lassi shop had split, but the name Ghamandi Lassi remained... The highlight of this pit stop was the Badam Milk though, something that was to be eaten and not fit for drinking... never had badam milk so full of Badam in my life !!! Calls for a celebration, and we did celebrate with 2 glasses each of the Lassi and Badam Milk each !!!!

Don't treat your visitors with this, else they might just stay back...

This is where we met a few locals who suggested that we could stay back in Hoshangabad itself instead of going to Bhopal... visit a local temple there in the morning and then move to Bhopal... get down at Bhojpur to see the Shivling and then proceed to Bhopal... They even recommended a nice hotel nearby called the Vatika to eat and stay... this looked like a decent plan, and we decided to stay back !!!

Walked to the hotel to realize that it was full ( yes... surprising) and because we were in no mood to look for hotels there, we came back to our original plan of going to Bhopal !!! Took a bus from the bus stand, and we were in Bhopal around 2330 hrs.... checked into a hotel near the railway station... moved out to have some food... Ate, came back and crash landed on the bed...

No plans next nothing !!! knew a few places that we wanted to go to !!! but still no plans...

Lets see what happens next morning !!! Looks like its more fun this way :)




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Some Information now..

Taxi Fare : 40 bucks per person if you are ok with a total of 15 people in the taxi... if you want more space, be ready to shell out some extra money... We paid 200 bucks on our way to Pachmadi for the two of us as we practically took 4 seats ( Fat guys we are) and 40 bucks were the "you are new to this place" charge... The taxi has to earn Rs. 600 per trip, and that gets divided...

Hotel Tariff in Piparia in Alka Lodge : Rs. 400 for an AC room... no electricity backup though...

Hotel Tariff in Pachmadi : Anything between Rs. 350 to Rs. 2000. Try and not roam around with Taxi walas to save 50-200 bucks on your tariff... The high end hotels are outside the town, further uphill...

Roaming around in Pachmadi : The only option is Taxis, which can be hired exclusively for about 1000 bucks a day or shared with someone... There are tickets to enter the common interest points as well, and be prepared to see a lot of honeymooners around the area...

Piparia to Hoshangabad bus fare : Rs. 50 per head; Travel time around 2 hours...

Hoshangabad to Bhopal bus fare : Rs. 40 per head; Travel time around 2 hours...

The Jungle Kilometres and back to Jabalpur....

Me and Aro talk a li'il too much when there is no walking around to do... and that means that we sleep late... and we did... Even after more than 24 hours of non stop journey, we still had some time and energy left to argue, get into some last minute fights, plan for the next trip, the next day, and then slept away to glory around midnight....

We had filled in the forms the previous night to enter the park so did not have much to do in the morning except wake up on time, have a quick cup of tea, and rush to the gypsy which was ready to rock and roll... Manoj was our driver, and he looked like a pretty quiet fella, and he turned out to be one lost character too... too bad, but never mind...

Good Morning Kanha :)

So we were at the Kisli Gate around 0600 hrs, the main gate had already opened, and we were let in quickly... 3 kms later was the main gate of the park, which is where a route and an essential guide is assigned to the gypsy.... Our park guide for the day was Dinesh Kumar Soni... a young but enthusiastic fella... was ok with admitting that he was in the second layer of the guides, but this enthu and nature made up more than enough for some lack of knowledge... not that we were taking notes anyway...

The road leading inside the Kanha National Park through the Kisli Gate...

Kanha is full of Saal Trees... and here is a small point of view about Saal..

Sau Saal Khada
Sau Saal Pada
Sau Saal Sada

Saal Tree

Stands for 100 yrs, lies does for another 100 and takes 100 more to decay...

This is the same tree, wood from which was used to make a base for the railway lines sometime back, which is now replaced by concrete and iron...

Dinesh Kumar Soni, our guide on day 1

Manoj Kumar, our Driver...

So we moved around the park on the route number 10 looking at animals, trees, dust, listening to many birds stopping and moving and stopping and moving...

Barahsingha and the Spotted Deer...

Sambhar

A Spotted deer shooing a Peacock away... A chase of its own kind... was pretty interesting...

The Indian Gaur (Bison)

In the center of the park (The Kanha Side) we took a break, had breakfast and also registered for the Tiger Show... At a fee of 100 rs. per head you are taken to a spot where tiger is seen, and then you climb the elephant back and go into the bushes to have a face to face with the jungle CAT....

Shooting with straight steady hands...

And with Steady Legs too...

Gypsys parked inside the Park; This is where we registered for the Tiger Show... The wait at times can be a couple of hours long...

We did too... and when I saw the tiger, I was hoping that he does not look at me, because I could sense the attitude in his eyes and I was having mixed feelings of excitement, fear, nervousness etc etc... but it was really sad to see how the Elephants were made to chase the tiger to make sure people who have paid get to see the tiger... and this poor animal only kept running around to avoid the crowd.. but then how can we step back... we are known to bully when the other person is backing off... so all the gypsy drivers, the 4 mahauts were after this poor guys life... I only wonder what would happen if the TIGER decides to charge... on second thoughts, this tiger show is generating a lot of revenue for the park which I feel is essential, and is also helping the park give employment to loads of local people around.... I feel a balance is what needs to be made though, these wild cats needs their space and independence and should not be bothered like I saw... it hurts...

Does this one need a caption?

People waiting for the tiger to show up... This is near the tiger show spot...

Our Safari finished by 1200 hrs, and we were back in the resort by 1230 hrs... all covered in dust, the first thing I noticed when I entered the resort was the swimming pool... and I knew what I was going to do next... so a rushed walk to the room, and a even more rushed walk to the pool... and 45 minutes of fun... Even managed to have the hippo who walks like an elephant to take a bath in the pool... And Aro loved it too :D

Much needed Sprite after the Safari...

And Tea...

Had some real good lunch and slept but not before we planned to get up around 1600 hrs to take a hike into the jungle to a few nearby villages... but we managed to wake up only by 1530 hrs and obviously the plans to walk around were to be canceled...

Some wild flowers inside the Jungle

At tea, we met Mr. Pramod Singh who manages Foreign traffic to Kanha and is a active member of loads of wildlife clubs and has been an avid trekker himself... He also suggested that he could join us for the safari next morning, which did sound like a good idea...

We had tea and got talking to a few people around the resort, one of which was a driver called Dilip, the elder brother of Manoj... Dilip had been around for a while, and that small 30 minute conversation with him was full of many interesting stories about the tigers and other wild cats making rounds of places... it was a very very interesting half hour of the trip... and then he suddenly decided to give us a night safari, and we left the resort around 1900 hrs... and kept driving around till 2130 hrs in the dark... did not see many animals but the sky was obviously wonderful, and the dark interesting...

Were finally back and decided to eat quickly and call it a day, to wake up early and be the first in the queue. Told Mr. Singh that we would be ready by 0515 hrs...

So next morning we indeed were ready by 0515 hrs, and left only to realized that we were a li'il too early for the gates to open... We still were the 3rd gypsy in the queue, filled the forms and managed to reach the main Kisli gate around 0545 hrs... I think the route number today was 14... Manoj was at his lost best, and the guide even though knew a lot, was put off by a few remarks made by Mr. Pramod when we started the safari...

Mr. Pramod Singh... a very knowledgeable man and a avid trekker...

Highlights of the day were Bisons, some spotted deer, the barking deer, and some foreigners with loads of 1Ds and L Series lenses... I think that group of 4 had 2 EOS 1D each loaded with L series lenses of different focal lengths... phew !!!

Tall Saal Trees around the jungle...

Barking Dear oops... Deer :P

Langoors eating Soil... Don't ask me why... I did, and I was told they like it... Yes, it was Soil and not insects in it...

The second day, Aro and me agreed was more or less of a waste in the jungle... and I guess to compensate we ate like wild animals at lunch... whoever said that eat light when you are traveling may please go to HELL :D

The Mahauts in the Jungle... you can see a bag with a Walky Talky used to communicate the location of the Tiger for the Tiger Show

so a stomach full as full is, and a body not ready to move, we checked out of the Mogli Resorts and rushed to catch the 1330 hrs bus, but only to realize that it had already left... and the next bus was about an hour later...

This bus ride was also very interesting as expected...

A Baby Parrot called Mitthu by everyone who saw him in the bus...

Mitthu eating some Chana out of the hands of his caretaker in the bus... he would happily sleep when the bus was moving, and make loads of noise when it stopped... Cute Kiddie he was...

We changed the bus at Mandla again, which reach Jabalpur around 2000 hrs with one pitstop at Narainkunj...

A quick pitstop before Mandla... interesting air blown Angithi at a Tea Shop there...

Mandla : Local Cinema Poster Man...

Pitstop @ Narainkunj (About 40 kms from Mandla)

So here we were in Jabalpur, with an open plan... we could stay back in Jabalpur and go to Duandhar the next morning and then move to Piparia and to Pachmadi (where we planned to stay for the next two days) or we could go to Piparia straightaway and go to Pachmadi the next morning... we knew that Piparia was about 4 hours away by train and decided to take the Overnight express (Jabalpur to Bhopal; leaves Jabalpur @ 2300 hrs and reaches Bhopal at 0615 hrs)...

We check the availability and then moved to the booking clerk (with the train number this time) who suggested that we could take the ticket from the counter at the station itself in about an hours time... This is when Aro realized that he had dropped his mobile and we rushed to the bus stand only to search the bus without any success... not too good an incident, but we could not really do much about it... so we let it be...

Came back to the station, took the tickets for the overnight, and then asked one of the guys at the counter about a decent place to have dinner and he was kind enough to walk us to the restaurant... We had our food without much talking as we were pretty tired and were only waiting for the clock to strike 11...

We finally boarded the train, and found out that the train leaves Piparia at 0230 hrs which was definitely not a convenient time to reach any new station... but the thought of doing something of that sort was exciting enough for us to change our minds anyway... and so we slept... only to be woken up by the kind hearted TC at 0130 hrs ( so about an hour and half of sleep) because the train had already reached Piparia...

We quickly walked out of the coach thinking that the stoppage was quick there, but looks like the train reached there well before time and was only waiting to leave at its scheduled time... so we sat on the platform bench, thinking if we should sleep on the platform itself ( which honestly did NOT seem to be a bad idea) or walk around and find a hotel... after a lousy cup of tea, some odomos rubbing on the arms to avoid the killer mosquitoes, and some serious thinking later we decided to walk around the town to find a hotel for ourselves :)

Chai Ki Dukaan @ Piparia Station

It did turn out to be a very good idea because it did not take us much hardships to find a decent, rather more than decent Alka Hotel with an AC room for 400 bucks a night... its a different story that i twisted my ankle bad enough to almost scream in pain in the middle of a desert lane in a town which was sleeping silently at that hour :)

Piparia Station from the Overbridge; You can also see the Overnight Express in the left

So here we were... Piparia, Hotel Alka, Room number 203, AC on.. and a TV and we talking again.. God when would these conversations finish... I don't know when I slept and when Aro did, or who slept first... all I remember is waking up the next morning, all fresh and happy happy...

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Now some travel information

Safari Costs:
900 per gypsy (Morning Safari; 0600 hrs to 1200 hrs)
700 per gypsy( Evening Safari; 1600 hrs to Sunset about 2 hours usually)
Entry per gypsy : Rs. 650 (500 entry charges + 150 guide fees)
Gates open 0600 hrs in the morning
Approximate per night expenditure in Kanha : Rs. 1200 per head to 1800 per head depending on the place you are staying in...
Kanha to Mandla : Rs. 36
Mandle to Jabalpur : Rs. 50
Jabalpur to Piparia ( 3rd AC ) : Rs. 300 something...

To Do:
Carry water
Carry Dust Brush
Cover Your Camera to save it from the dust when you are not using it
Enjoy the jungle and the sounds ( They are more then enough to make you fall in love with the place)
Ask questions (thats what the guide is there for)

Do Nots
Avoid Changing lenses ( Carry two cameras instead)
Avoid throwing stuff on the road or walking on the road except the designated areas
And blah and blah and blah...

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What happens the day we wake up in Piparia is pretty interesting... and I am happy it happened the way it happened... so watch this page for more...

Till then... ROAR !!!!